Portland Area Art Events

Harem Room-1 and Two Women

Panel discussion Wednesday, January 31 at 6:00pm
First Thursday opening February 1, 6:00 to 8:00pm

THE WORK
This solo exhibition by New York-based artist Alix Pearlstein pairs sculptural installation Harem ROOM-1 (2016) with her video Two Women (2000). Both works are grounded in a psychological understanding of human motivations and interactions, and grapple with the complex interplay of desire, objectification and individuality within social organization.

The installation consists of an arrangement of feline, figurative objects on the gallery floor. Their calculated staging employs gaze and sight lines to foreground status through social groupings, as well as relationships, affinities and affections. “Harem" in this context refers to a multiplicity of ideas: most obviously, a group of females perceived as centering around a particular male, and attendant associations; but also the lesser-known definition of a collection of like, fetishized objects.

The video, meanwhile, shows a man pacing against a blank background while eyeing a magazine cutout of a nude woman dangling in the foreground. Two disembodied women’s voices are audible: one, a voiceover of coaxing suggestions, the other responsive moans and sighs. Desire as portrayed by the media, replete with tensions between “real” and “fake”, play out for the male performer, the woman we don’t see and the viewer.